


Hamsa

by Aoife, duckwhatduck, Hagar, Pameluke, SailorSol



Category: Japanese Mythology, Jewish Scripture & Legend, Singularity North
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: Streaming, BAMF Women, Bechdel Test Pass, Collaborative Work, Community: pod_together, Crossover, Dari, Demons Hunters, Dutch, Female Friendship, Footnotes of Doom, Gen, Hebrew, Humor, Japanese, Knowledge of Source Canons Not Required, Languages, Leaning on Mythology and Lore till it Creaks, Listen with the Text Handy, Medicating with Alcohol, Original Character(s), Podfic, Podfic Available, Podfic Length: 10-20 Minutes, References to Supernatural (TV), Supernatural Creatures, Transliterations Used, Walk Into A Bar, Women Being Awesome, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-03
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Aoife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckwhatduck/pseuds/duckwhatduck, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pameluke/pseuds/Pameluke, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSol/pseuds/SailorSol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Close your eyes, take one step to the left and one step forward, and open the door that isn't there.” Fee discovers the Pub Outside Time after having her first encounter with an actual demon. The Big Sisters’ Club helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hamsa

**Author's Note:**

> [Hamsa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamsa), a fanwork by Aoife, duckwhatduck, Hagar, Pameluke and Sailor Sol. Produced for the Pod Together Challenge, 2013. For further notes, including translations and sound credits, please see the written fanfic on the Archive of Our Own.
> 
> The creators would like to thank the Pod Together mods for throwing this party and so giving us the chance to do this project. We all had an amazing time working on this. We would also like to thank the one and only amazing IShouldBeWriting who served as audio beta on this and did tons of editing.
> 
> For more works involving this version of the Biblical Yael, please see [Milk & Blood](http://archiveofourown.org/series/36438) and [Miriam's Daughter](http://archiveofourown.org/chapters/1848197). Hagar would also like to wish a sweet & happy new year to everyone who have their year beginning tomorrow night. Shana Tova.
> 
>  _Aoife_ \- Fee Black, text editing  & coding; _duckwhatduck_ \- Baku, art; _Hagar_ \- Yael, audio editing; _Pameluke_ \- Wis Vermeulen, sound effects; _SailorSol_ \- Liz Brown, narration, text editing  & coding.

[MP3](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2013/Hamsa-aoife,%20juckwhatduck,%20hagar,%20pameluke,%20sailorsol.mp3) [M4B](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2013/Hamsa-aoife,%20juckwhatduck,%20hagar,%20pameluke,%20sailorsol.m4b) [Cover Art](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2013/Images/Hamsa-aoife,%20juckwhatduck,%20hagar,%20pameluke,%20sailorsol.png)

**Fee:** Mace, I’ve gone for a walk to clear my head. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.

**Mace:** Do you want me to come with you?

**Fee:** No, I’m just … Something went really odd when I was patrolling with the Afghans earlier today and I just need to think about it before I try and write an actual report, love.

[Fee walks away from Mace and enters the bar through a nondescript door.]

**Fee:** Okay, Dorothy, you aren’t in Kansas anymore.

 **Wis:** Ah fresh meat. What can I get you? You look like you could use a Westmalle. Dubbel of Tripel? 1 [starts pouring a beer without an answer]

**Yael:** Shalom lach. 2

**Baku:** Aah, ii niyoi desu ne ... 3 [Baku meanders over and sniffs at Fee]

**Fee:** Wa alaykumu s-salam, 4 honr-m - [to Baku] - Khdaha, In chist?5

**Baku:** [backing off] Shitsureshimasu. Baku to moushimasu ...  6

**Liz:** Haven’t heard that one around in a while. If you want back to Kansas that badly though, you can always click your heels three times.

**Yael:** Kindness, Liz. We are all guests here.

**Fee:** I’d prefer New Orleans; but it was a figure of speech, given I’m supposed to be in Afghanistan.

**Wis:** Here’s your drink.

**Liz:** Sorry. Magic slippers won’t help you with that one. So what do they call you in the Sandbox, Dorothy?

**Fee:** Lieutenant Fee Black, Royal Engineers.

**Yael:** And what brings you here, the Lieutenant?

**Fee:** I think I needed a drink too badly, judging by you and they’s presence, honr-m. 7

**Wis:** Well, drink-up then! Liz, can I get you anything else? Yael, I’m assuming you want more of that wretched tea of yours? [under her breath] Thee, thee, altijd thee, een van deze dagen smijt ik daar toch eens alcohol in 8.

**Yael:** Resenting the tea again, Wis yakirati? 9 Ma yihiye? 10 [to Fee] You be careful with that drink, Lieutenant. It has more bite than some expect.

**Baku:** Some people just do not appreciate good tea, Yael-san.

**Yael:** Lo hem lo, chavera.  11

**Wis:** But I bet you’d like it! How can you be sure if you never try anything Yael. Live a bit on the wild side.

**Liz:** Just keep the Duvels coming for me, Wis. Since you won’t stock any Sam Adams. I’d be drinking Jack, if I wasn’t headed out again in a bit.

**Wis:** Sam Adams is geen bier, komaan zeg. 12 Duvel and a Jack it is.

**Fee:** Aya mey, dareen? Babbshee; 13 I’ve been using my Persian more than my English recently. Is there any chance I could have some mead, please?

**Yael:** And may we have something to go with that mead, Wis? I daresay the Lieutenant is in need of that as well.

**Liz:** Wow, Yael, I haven’t heard you be this namby-pamby since the first time I stumbled in here half-cocked.

**Yael:** Manners, yalda. Zo lo mila gassa. 14

**Wis:** Mead, coming up. Any preference for country or year of origin? I’ve got one bottle left of Egyptian mead from the year of Ramses II. Or some good ol’ Vikingr Mead? That’ll get you warm and toasty and ready to fight.

**Fee:** The Misree, lutfan. 15

**Yael:** I believe our little sister asked for the Egyptian. And something sweet for what shock brought her in here, yes, Wis?

**Wis:** Excellent choice. I’ll double it up for you, and I think I’ve got just the thing for that sweet-tooth. Ah, ik wist dat ik er nog had. 16 Here you go, real Belgian Chocolate for you. Hope you appreciate the dark stuff.

**Fee:** [takes a bite of the chocolate] Thank you, Wis. That’s far better than the stuff in the rat-packs. [Pauses for a swallow of the mead.] Now, in Andraste’s 17 name, where am I, and would someone please tell me why I’m here?

**Yael:** Why you’re here, well, that you know. And where we are, that is perhaps more like when, or when not.

**Liz:** Give the girl a smile, Yael, and I can start calling you the Cheshire Cat.

**Wis:** You’re in a bar obviously. Thought a clever girl like you would’ve noticed that.

**Yael:** Indeed, it is a bar. Outside time, or at a very odd angle to it.

**Liz:** You’ll probably turn up a few minutes after you left. I’ve never been gone longer than I was in here.

**Fee:** Thank the gods for that. I’d rather not be written up for being absent without leave, but why am I _here_?

**Wis:** Well, to be fair, the passing of times depends on how magic you are, but judging by the warding I think it should be minimal.

**Liz:** And you’re definitely magic, otherwise you wouldn’t have gotten in here. So that’s half your answer as to why you’re here. I can only hope the other half of why you’re here is so that I no longer have to be the youngest of this bunch. You _are_ only as old as you appear, right?

**Fee:** Twenty five in a few weeks.

**Yael:** Ma yihiye, yalda? 18 [to Fee] You saw something - or you did something, by what residue of power clings to you still. And it opened to you the door to where you may rest and keep company between hunts.

**Fee:** Oh. I just … I just needed to keep them alive. That’s _all_ I was trying to do. There was an explosion only it wasn’t an explosion and…

**Baku:** It sounds like that was what I smelled on you, then.

**Fee:** Okayyy. Did I miss an answer on what you are? I’m trying not to freak out, and I’m pretty sure you’re not evil, but you’re not from any of the myth sets I’m used to.

**Liz:** What, you’ve never seen a talking, tea-drinking tapir who eats bad dreams before?

**Wis:** [snorts]

**Fee:** No.

**Baku:** I don’t see what’s so odd about it, Liz-chan.

**Liz:** Hey, I’ve known you since I was like, fourteen, Baku-san. I’m not the one having a freakout.

**Fee:** As far as I was concerned, this morning, my magic was mostly impractical ritual stuff and I’d never actually seen anything from the old myths up close and personal. Excuse me for being freaked out.

**Wis:** No-one get their panties in a twist, we’re all on the nice side of magic here, so no reason to freak out. [to herself] Beginnelingen zijn altijd zo zenuwachtig. 19

**Baku:** I’m sorry if I startled you; I certainly didn’t intend to make matters worse. Kedo saa, 20 I’m not the only strange one around here, just the most visibly so.

**Yael:** You are a Priestess, the Lieutenant. But that is a conversation you should have with She who you answer to. I am Yael achot-Dvora, who was wife of Chever HaKeyni.  21

**Wis:** We mostly just call her Yael.

**Fee:** As of from the Book of Judges? That Yael, or her namesake?

**Yael:** I am Yael of the Book, yes.

**Fee:** That would explain a lot of how you feel, honr-m.

**Liz:** Just don’t ask for stories, we’ll be here all day, and I’ve heard most of them. Liz Brown, and you are my new best friend, considering the fact that the only other people who come in here who are even remotely our age are the Winchesters, and they’re a pair of self-sacrificing morons.

**Baku:** Aa, ano futari? 22 They’re usually good for a snack, but not much else.

**Wis:** Horrible taste in beer as well. Always going for the cheap stuff. You’d think Ellen would’ve cured them from that habit. 

**Liz:** They spend too much time with Bobby Singer and not enough time around anyone with common sense. Besides, didn’t they blow up her bar? Jo mentioned something about it.

**Wis:** As far as I recall, that wasn’t them, although they did cause it. Destruction follows them around. Which is why your payment for drinks is warding the glassware, Lieutenant. But today it’s on the house, since it’s your first time.

**Fee:** Just as well, ma’am, since I’ll need to research how to ward glassware. I did say I was new to doing much other than ritual work!

**Wis:** No need to ma’am me, we’ve shared drinks! I’m Wis Vermeulen, but you can call me Wis. This bar belongs to me, or I belong to this bar, nobody’s really sure at this point. Maybe I am the bar? But if you need a place to hide out and unwind, we’re always here.

**Yael:** You are not the bar.

**Baku:** Though very much a part of it, ne?

**Yael:** That, yes.

**Liz:** She came in with her boyfriend sometime during the ‘80s and he ditched her here, but with the whole timey-wimey thing, she’s been here for ages. I suppose there are worse places to get stuck for all time. Like Pittsburgh.

**Fee:** Or Slough?

**Wis:** He didn’t ditch me, de dommekloot 23 got himself blown-up. But yeah basically, I got stuck here, since I don’t have any magic of my own.

**Yael:** And what power I am granted may only be used on behalf of the People.

**Fee:** You’re some kind of chosen warrior, then, Yael? For Abraham’s children through Isaac?

**Yael:** These children by blood or by choice, yes. I chose to slay Sisera; Elohim chose to bless these hands.

**Fee:** Merciful … how long have you been walking for, carrying His blessing?

**Yael:** Long.

**Liz:** Longer than my family has been in this business. Aunt Evelyn introduced me to Yael when I was fourteen, and her mother introduced her when she was about the same age, all the way back to when the family decided to hightail it out of England and set up shop in what would become Massachusetts. Four hundred someodd years of history is a long time for mere mortals such as us. Of course, if you want _old_ , you should be talking to Baku-san. She makes Yael look like a spring chicken.

**Wis:** [snorts]

**Yael:** [head in hands, laughing] Ma ani e’ese itach, yalda ... 24

**Fee:** I find sending my baby-sister to bed with no sweets helps, Yael.

**Liz:** Hey, you’re the baby around here now, _Lieutenant_.

**Baku:** Yare yare 25 ... Liz-chan, if Yael-san and I are so ancient, perhaps you should try showing some respect for your elders? And yes, I am older than Yael-san, not that it’s a competition. Besides, I am Baku, age is not the same for us as it is for humans.

**Wis:** The age thing isn’t even that important, if you’re plagued by bad memories and nightmares, she’s the one you want to be on good terms with. More tea, Baku?

**Baku:** Doumo, Wis-san. 26

**Fee:** I owe you an apology for my earlier reaction, Baku. And if this operational tour continues as it’s currently going …

**Yael:** La’chol zman ve’et le’chol chefetz, 27 Priestess. Speaking of. Bring the wine, Wis? I should be leaving soon.

**Wis:** Wine coming up, Yael. And thanks again for bringing along all that cheese. Where and when are you headed now?

**Yael:** The Land again, I’m afraid.

**Wis:** Ocharme, 28 I’ll make sure I’ll still have some of your favorite tea when you return then. If you could bring back some olive oil, I’d appreciate it, I’m almost out, but don’t worry about it if it turns out to be a bad run, I’ll manage. Here’s your wine.

**Yael:** Toda lach 29, Wis.

**Wis:** All right, this calls for a toast. To successful hunts, safe travels and new friends. Schol! 30

**Baku:** Kanpai! Oshiawase ni! 31

**Fee:** Beh salaamati! 32

**Liz:** Lechtech leshalom veshuvech beshalom. 33

**Yael:** LeChayim. Amen. 34

* * *

1: Dutch; "Dubbel or Tripel" - It’s not about the dosage/amount, but instead are brand names, like Coke Light and Coke Zero. Westmalle is a Belgian Beer and one of 8 official [Trappist beers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trappist_beer), Dubbel is the dark beer, Tripel is the blonde and the stronger one.

2: Hebrew, transliterated; "Peace to you."

3: Japenese, transliterated; "Oh, something smells good ..."

4: Arabic, transliterated; "And unto you peace,"

5: Persian, transliterated; "my Lady -" [name of one of the other characters] - "Gods, what is that?"

6: Japanese, transliterated; "Excuse me; I’m Baku ..."

7: Persian, transliterated; in this context, the honorific "Lady", also woman, and wife.

8: Dutch; "Tea, tea, always tea, one of these days I’m going to throw some alcohol in there"

9: Hebrew, transliterated; "Wis my darling?" 

10: Hebrew, transliterated; Lit. "What will be?"; no idiomatic equivalent.

11: Hebrew, transliterated; "No, they don’t, friend."

12: Dutch; "Sam Adams isn’t beer, come on." - [Duvel is a brand of Belgian beer, literally means Devil.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duvel#Duvel)

13: Persian, transliterated; "Do you have mead?" Lit. "Forgive me"

14: Hebrew, transliterated; "Manners, girl-child; it’s not a dirty word."

15: Persian, transliterated; "That Egyptian, please"

16: Dutch; "Ah, I knew I had some left"

17: Pre-Roman British Goddess, called on by Bodiccea (see [Roman History - Cassisus Dio](http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/) for the substansiated references)

18: Hebrew, transliterated; No precise idiomatic equivalent; somewhat similar to "What am I going to do with you?", but without "do", "with" or "you".

19: Dutch; "Newbies are always so high-strung."

20: Japanese, transliterated; "But, you know,"

21: Hebrew, transliterated; "I am Yael, Sister of Dvora, who was wife of Heber the Kenite."

22: Japanese, transliterated; "Oh, those two?" 

23: Dutch; Lit. "stupid scrotum," - an older equivalent of asshole

24: Hebrew, transliterated; "What am I going to do with you, girl-child."

25: Japenese, transliterated; "My, my"

26: Japanese, transliterated; "Thanks"

27: Hebrew, transliterated; "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose."

28: Dutch; "Oh dear" 

29: Hebrew, transliterated; "Thank you"

30: Dutch; "Confirms the toast" 

31: Japanese, transliterated; "Cheers! To your happiness"

32: Persian, transliterated; "To your health!"

33: Hebrew, transliterated; "Go in peace and return in peace" 

34: Hebrew, transliterated; "To Life, Amen"

**Author's Note:**

>  **Songs appearing in the podfic, in order of appearance:** (1) Intro cue - [The Islander/Nightwish](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYQAIyzoS-o), (2) Setting 1 - [Pregao/Madredeus](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZpNzhQ8h1Q), (3) Setting 2 - [Intro (Taste Of Where I’m From)/Balkan Beat Box](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bghAt6QGKo), (4) Outro cue - [Back To The Earth/Rusted Root](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V86kFVINXv8)
> 
>  **Sound effects taken from the following sites:** audiomicro, freesound.org and freesfx.co.uk, shared under the Creative Commons Zero license or otherwise with no need for further attribution. This with the exceptions of the sound "SFX_WINE-Uncork-POURS.wav", which was created by [HDM2013](http://www.freesound.org/people/HDM2013/) and is shareable under an Attribution licence, and the of the sound of glasses clinking, which was recorded by Pameluke.


End file.
